I have been having a few drive letter problems with my computer and flash drives, and I was hoping you wonderful people might be able to help diagnose the issue.

Whenever I connect a flash drive (both my USB stick and my flash mp3 player), it installs properly but does not show the drive letter in my computer.

When I go to my computer->Disk management, the device does show up. If I assign it a drive letter, it goes smoothly, but still does not show up in my computer. I can still access the drive if i open it from the disk management console, but where the drive letter/name usually are it is just blank.

When I restart my computer it still doesnt show in my computer, and when I try to assign the drive letter again, the one that I had previously assigned to my device is not in the drop down list, meaning that it still thinks it is in use.

Computer Specs:

Toshiba Laptop M30
Windows XP service Pack 2

This is a rather annoying problem, and I would really appreciate all the help I can get on this issue.

Thanks and cheers,

bluemouse

Edit: To add, when I try to format it in device manager, i get "The operation did not complete because the drive or partition is not enabled. To enable the partition or volume, restart the comptuer." However, restarting does not work. Disk management says the device is healthy.

Moreover, when I go to Device manager, two of the same drive are present under disk drives. This may be due to the mp3 player having two partitions (one being a small hibernation partition), but i dont know :S It is a Sandisk e260 player, just for that added bit of information.

Just to add a bit more odd information:

When I go into a program such as notepad, or anything where I can see the drive letters when clicking "save as" or something, I can see the drive letter that I Cannot see in My computer. The old drive letter (before disconnect) was still there as well, although nothing is attached to it. I can, however, access all the folders.

I am also experiencing problems with my usb drive disconnecting, which is when I get all these unused but still there drive letters. Every time it disconnects i have to go into disk management and assign a new drive letter again...

Edit2: The problem with my device disconnecting was the power supply to the usb drives. I got an external and it doesnt disconnect, but I am still having problems with that damn drive letter. All the "used" ones clear upon reboot.

Hm, still can't figure it out. I just keep running out of drive letters when I continuously disconnect/reconnect/reassign drive letter with my mp3 player...

You can go into adminstrative tools and change the drive letter for D: (DVD/ROM or DVDRW drive to F: this is a quick work around. This problem also comes up on a corp domain, I have to change mapped network drives letters around so that a USB2 drive will should up correcly.

how many usb ports do you have
3 usb devices and ??ports
usb driver confusion
can try mapping the drives
should keep main hdd to no more n 2 partitions
move or change E to d need to do some juggling round
with this much mass drive CD or DVD should be after the hdd

I have a mouse and external harddrive plugged in, and then either my mp3 flash or usb key flash plugged in sometimes.

I have 3 ports in my laptop, but one of them is connected to a usb hub with 4 ports. I have tried resolving this issue both with and without anything else plugged in besides one of the flash drives.

usb driver confusion
can try mapping the drives

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I have tried mapping the drives. Only mapping the flash drives fail

should keep main hdd to no more n 2 partitions

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Main hdd only has 2 partitions, C:/ and E:/

move or change E to d need to do some juggling round

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Tried that

with this much mass drive CD or DVD should be after the hdd

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CD Drive is now F:/ instead of D:/ but I still have the same problem

hope that helps
bluemouse

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Thanks for trying though You did better than microsoft or toshiba....

I just love it when level 2 tech support guys on both ends first suggest that it is a fault with the other company (ie if I call toshiba, they say it is a problem with the OS, and if i call microsoft they say it is a toshiba driver issue)

They then proceed to tell me that formatting my hard drive would most likely solve the issue, as if I didnt know that already, and am only calling to avoid having to do that in the first place.....

I even had to convince the level 2 microsoft guy that I was running Service pack 2, even when he was remotely connected to my computer and could see that it said sp2 under my computer...

Like I said, when I go to my computer, i cannot see the flash drive. However, If i go to disk management and map it, i can still open it from there. When I check the folders tab in the now opened explorer window, i cannot see the drive still under my computer.

HOWEVER, if I create a test html page (test.html), open it in internet explorer, and then get rid of the test.html so the url/path is just file:///D:/ (where D is the drive mapping of the flash drive), I CAN see it in the left (folder) pane. It appears that internet explorer acting as windows explorer can see it fine, its just my computer/windows explorer that has problems. Of course, if I unplug it i still need to remap.

Since drive letter issues are more common than they should be with Windows, it appears others have created drive letter managers. Check this out. Let us know if using a 3rd party tool gives you any positive results.

ack I forgot that one
ya I had a virtual drive use a usb drive letter
usb device vanished
this happened with flash disk drive as well
usb driver port assignment is scarey
i wonder if you can make xp see them as a standard drive (not removeable)
looking at doing testing with my hotswap drives thought I saw something about

Since drive letter issues are more common than they should be with Windows, it appears others have created drive letter managers. Check this out. Let us know if using a 3rd party tool gives you any positive results.

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I dont have a network drive, and I did try reassigning my D:/ Drive and E:/ drive to something like R and S. Didnt do anything :S Even if that is my problem though, it should show once I remap the drive letters, and it doesnt. THen there is that odd thing about showing in Internet explorer, but not my computer->windows explorer.

Reinstall your USB drivers: Device manager>USB controllers>Remove all under that tree. Reboot your PC with all your devices that use a letter on the My Computer list and let it reinstall the USB controllers. See if that helps.

Have you tried different ports, or if you're using an external hub, a port directly connected to your motherboard (eg the back ones)?

Reinstall your USB drivers: Device manager>USB controllers>Remove all under that tree. Reboot your PC with all your devices that use a letter on the My Computer list and let it reinstall the USB controllers. See if that helps.

Have you tried different ports, or if you're using an external hub, a port directly connected to your motherboard (eg the back ones)?

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I have tried all 3 ports, plus a powered hub with no luck. I have also tried removing the controllers and letting it reinstall, but that didnt work either :S

Sphere: How did you install windows? Clean install? upgrade? Lets see if we can work out some similarities and narrow it down. Is yours a laptop?

Windows was installed with this yes, I used to be able to use them but all of a sudden it won’t pick them up now . It is a laptop and I have just done a windows xp repair with no luck still. I have tried all 4 USB slots with the sticks and none are recognised. I am using them though so they aren’t damaged.

I mean I can see then when I go to my computer>manage>disk management

This is very annoying because I also can’t do a windows update as well for some reason

That cant be my problem because all my other stuff is working through the usb ports

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Improper current can cause all sorts of nearly unexplainable problems, but I agree - this definitely sounds like a software issue. I've just been casually following this post, but when I get some more time I'm going to search for answers. I like a good mystery.

Don't forget about trying a 3rd party drive letter manager when you get the chance. I'd like to see the results, if there are any worth seeing.

You know, I was thinking, maybe using diskpart will do something different. You can access diskpart by going to Start > Run > cmd and type diskpart in the cmd shell. It might also help us get some more info about you have been looking at.

So type in the command to fire up diskpart - you'll be taken to the diskpart command shell. DISKPART>. At the shell, type:

list volumelist disk - Copy and paste the results in this thread

Is your USB drive listed anywhere in there? It should show up under the volume list for sure.